The Fires of Vengeance

By LISA BEYER/JERICHO

Fortunately for him, Yasser Arafat tolerates drama well. Otherwise, the highs and lows, mostly lows, of recent days might have overtaxed his ballast. In the course of two weeks, Arafat has seen the clinching of a new peace accord with Israel, the worst anti-Palestinian Authority riots ever in the West Bank, the attempted slaughter of 40 Israeli schoolchildren, another botched bombing of a Jerusalem market and the issuing of unprecedented threats against his life. All this for the sake of a peace agreement that most Palestinians think the Israelis will not honor anyway. Arafat has always led a dangerous life. But if he thought retiring as a revolutionary exile and returning home as a man of peace would provide some respite, these wild days have set him straight.

Arafat came out of the negotiations at Wye Plantation three weeks ago a happy man. For the Palestinians, the main issue had been how much more of the West Bank Israel would turn over to self-rule. Though Palestinian officials, who currently practice limited autonomy in 30% of the West Bank, thought they deserved another 30%, Arafat, as part of a strategic decision to get closer to the U.S., agreed last spring to an American compromise: 13%. Though ideologically opposed to withdrawing from any part of the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, of the right-wing Likud, finally bowed at Wye. Says Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy: "Arafat scored big. He now has Likud agreeing to give up a significant piece of territory."

Arafat's satisfaction, however, was tempered when thousands of Palestinians rioted in the West Bank city of Ramallah two days after the signing ceremony. It had nothing to do with the agreement, about which ordinary Palestinians have shown indifference and skepticism. Instead, the unrest was the culmination of a feud between the Palestinian Authority's military intelligence, run by Musa Arafat, the chairman's cousin, and members of Fatah, Arafat's faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization. Musa Arafat's men had ransacked a Fatah office, and the provocation touched off a furious response, fed by growing frustration with the Palestinian Authority, which has a record of torture, blackmail and rampant corruption.

Later that week, a member of Hamas, the largest Palestinian Islamic group, nearly blew up a bus filled with the school-bound children of Israeli settlers in the Gaza Strip. (An Israeli army jeep escorting the children cut him off, absorbing the blow of his 170-lb. car bomb. The bomber and one soldier died.) "[Arafat] was really panicking about it," said an official who saw him afterward. "Had it been the 40 schoolchildren, it would have been the end of the peace process as we know it." A Hamas splinter group, Islamic Jihad, made another go at that goal late last week, sending two bombers into a crowded market in Jewish West Jerusalem. The attack went awry when they lost control of their car and it exploded, killing the two and injuring at least 21 bystanders.

Cracking down on Hamas is not easy for Arafat. The group's members, after all, are Palestinians too, and campaigns against them are never popular. Arafat's officers have reservations about arresting their compatriots, an action that echoes too loudly those of the Israeli occupiers. Says an official: "For us, people who grew up on resistance, even though we're willing to serve peace, it's difficult psychologically to do the job for the Israelis."

The attempt on the school bus, however, gave Arafat the cover he felt he needed to move. Arafat's forces added hundreds of detainees to the dozens it had already rounded up. In an unprecedented move, they put Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, under house arrest and cut off his phone line.

The reaction was immediate. The next day, Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, spiritual leader of Iran, called Arafat a "traitor" and a Zionist "lackey." Hassan Nasrallah, spiritual leader of Hizballah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia, followed suit, suggesting that Palestinians assassinate Arafat, just as Egyptian radicals had killed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. In a leaflet faxed to reporters, the military wing of Hamas, breaking with its practice of eschewing internecine violence, accused Arafat of treason and warned that its activists, if pushed, might "direct their war and guns, out of necessity," against the Palestinian Authority.

A number of leaders of the political wing of Hamas claimed the leaflet was a fake. But this did not soothe the P.A. Says Jibril Rajoub, head of preventive security in the West Bank: "I have to take everything seriously." Another security chief says he does not think Hamas will target Arafat, but he does expect assassinations of lesser officials. Says a P.A. Cabinet member: "If you want to get rid of Arafat or any other P.A. official, all you need is a crazy guy like those who blow themselves up in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and unfortunately there are a lot of them around."

Arafat has clamped down on Hamas before, but its activists sense that this time is more serious, not least because the CIA is lending a hand, putting its own prestige and officers on the line. Says "Amin," a member of the military wing: "We believe the meeting in Wye had just one goal: liquidating Hamas." In the past, Arafat has arrested Hamas men and then quietly released many through what the Israelis complained was a "revolving door." With the CIA watching, that door may finally stop spinning.

While the Wye agreement asks P.A. security officials to respect human rights, neither the Israelis nor the Americans expect that they will, which will turn up the heat on Arafat even further. Says "Omar," an activist in the military wing of Hamas: "We cannot let Arafat's dogs beat us and eat us, and do nothing. What do you expect of us? That we turn the other cheek?" Adds a colleague, "Ali": "We have reached the conclusion that preaching about national unity is not going to achieve anything. We have to do it the way others did, in Sudan, Afghanistan and Iran."

If Hamas is convinced Arafat means business, the Israelis are not so sure. Last week Netanyahu three times postponed a Cabinet vote he said was necessary for implementation of the Wye accord. As his Cabinet was finally debating the accord on Friday, the terrorists struck in Jerusalem, prompting the government to postpone its decision indefinitely.

Arafat, however, isn't counting on Israel's goodwill. Instead, he is aiming his diplomacy these days at the U.S. Early this year, Arafat abandoned his customary policy of focusing on the Palestinians' ties with the Arab world and the European Union in favor of building relations with the U.S., which has never demonstrated particular sympathy for the Palestinian cause. "Today we are America-inclined," says a senior official. Though Palestinian officials resent the pro-Israel slant of U.S. policy, they have concluded that their best chances lie in working to correct that imbalance. When President Clinton, at the signing ceremony for the Wye accord, said he identified with the Palestinians' aspirations to live "freely" and "at home," some Palestinians took it as a virtual endorsement of statehood.

That is the real prize for Arafat: an independent Palestine, in his lifetime, which may be quickly running out. Arafat is 70 and, with his badly trembling lips and hands, is thought to be suffering from Parkinson's disease. Until the Wye accord was signed, Arafat had threatened to declare unilaterally a state next May 4, when the interim Oslo accords, providing for limited self-rule, expire. Now his aides say it's possible that deadline can be postponed and a state can be negotiated with Israel. Says Rashid Abu Shabak, deputy head of preventive security in the Gaza Strip: "New horizons have opened up." Not all of them are tranquil.

--With reporting by Jamil Hamad/Jericho and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington

With reporting by Jamil Hamad/Jericho and J.F.O. McAllister/Washington